Monday, May 02, 2016

Fairview Park Initiative Petitions Submitted

(Proponents Kim Hendricks,

Wendy Leece and Dr. Richard Mehren)

MORE THAN 7,100 SIGNATURES SUBMITTED
This morning representatives of the Fairview Park Preservation Alliance submitted what we were told was more than 7,100 signatures on petitions to place their initiative on the November 8, 2016 ballot. (The City Clerk's office just verified that a total of 7,135 signatures were submitted.)

COUNTING UNDERWAY
Those signatures will be counted by the City Clerk, Brenda Green, and her staff, then promptly shipped off to Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley for authentication. He has 30 working days, excluding weekends and holidays, to complete the task. It takes slightly less than 5,000 valid signatures to qualify for placement on the ballot.

(City Clerk Brenda Green

accepts petitions from Hendricks)

CITY COUNCIL WILL AUTHORIZE PLACEMENT ON BALLOTPresuming enough valid signatures were gathered, the petitions will be returned to the City of Costa Mesa and a certification resolution will be prepared for the City Council to approve authorizing the placement of the initiative on the ballot. It's likely that will happen sometime in June.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
If you wish to visit the website of the Fairview Park Preservation Alliance click HERE.
If you wish to view the 6-page initiative click HERE.
If you wish to read the Fairview Park Master Plan click HERE.

A COUNTER-MEASURE?What is unknown at this time is whether members of the City Council majority, in a fit of pique, will demand that a counter-measure be placed on the ballot, too - as they did with the Smart Growth Initiative.

PROTECTING THE "JEWEL"
Fairview Park, described by many as Costa Mesa's "Jewel", has been under siege for several years. Because there are more than 200 acres of mostly open space, certain elements within the city simply salivate over the possibility of building a sports complex on part of it. City officials created the Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee to assess the park, its current uses and possible other uses and advise the City Council on their findings. That body currently is dormant pending the completion of the update of the Open Space Master Plan of Parks and Recreation. It seems odd that they would be placed on hiatus when their work could impact the update of that document.

(Proponents Rick Huffman, Kim Hendricks, Cindy Black,

Wendy Leece, Dr. Richard Mehren and Jay Humphrey)

THE PEOPLE WANT IT NATURAL
Having attended most of those meetings in the past it was clear that, by far, the community sentiment expressed to the committee was for the park to be left in a natural state - without active sports infrastructure or other significant "improvements". This initiative was created to insure that Fairview Park would remain a natural, undeveloped park for future generations of Costa Mesans.

Lets hope that it will qualify and pass in the election. Nice to know that the park is closer to being safe from the likes of those three. Thank you all for the efforts in gathering signatures. Very good news.

Sentiment for preserving Fairview as natural open space was essentially universal. I spent most of my weekends in the park, at the booth the FPPA set up there each Saturday and Sunday, asking people for signatures. Those who did not sign were ONLY those who could not sign, because they were not Costa Mesa voters. There were a lot of them... Many from Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Fullerton, Anaheim, Santa Ana -- all wanted to sign, but we explained that it wouldn't help us because it was a Costa Mesa-owned park, and only Costa Mesa registered voters' signatures would count toward getting it on the ballot. At the end, people were driving into the park, and walking up to the booth, just to sign.

At the model train station, I met people from Alaska, Australia, Oregon, Seattle, Connecticut, England, Israel, and Irvine. There, roughly one in ten or so was a Costa Mesa resident. I nonetheless would get as many as fifty signatures in a typical day. Mostly, their reaction when told what the City Council had in mind for the model trains was "Oh, no, they can't do that!" Kids as young as two, and as old as seventy-three, rode the trains every day I was there.

It was really heartening to see how popular and well-loved the park is. With some luck, and a bunch of votes on this initiative, we may be able to keep it, and keep it this way.

Kudos to all those tireless volunteers who walked the neighborhoods and manned the tables in the park and around town and collected more than 7,100 signatures. This is one ballot measure that could - SHOULD - pass with an overwhelming majority.